Nf7 Nf7-s?

I'm looking for a whole new motherboard/cpu/ram setup for my machine seeing as how my via kt133 chipset just crapped the bed graphically speaking.

So far I've got it narrowed down to an XP 1800+ (was going to go for a 1700+ but the 1800 is 56$ at newegg so what the hell)

and either Corsair or Crucial DDR400, 768MB

I've also chosen the NF7 motherboard line from Abit, but I've got a few questions just to make sure everything's as good as it can be.

the NF7/-S supports the xp 1800+, correct?
As for ram, should I go with 1 stick of 768 or 2 of 384? Would you recommend Corsair or Crucial - and which product line?

I've taken some brief looks at the NF7 and -S, and so far I've jusst seen that the -S has better onboard sound, and has onboard graphics, where the nf7 has basic sound and no graphics -- is this correct?
Any other benefits of the NF7-S over the NF7?

I'm going to be putting a PNY GF4Ti4600 128MB (overclocked 100mhz clock and memory), and a SB Audigy Platinum in this machine media wise - which is why I'm leaning towards the NF7 since I don't need what the -S offers. Anything I'm missing?

and lastly: I'm getting a new case (as my current and most of it's contents are going to another part of the house), and I was wondering if 350PSU would be fine to run everything? My current computer has a 400watt, so if all else fails I could stick with the 400 - just curious.


Thanks for your help.

the XP1700 overclocks much better then the XP1800 so if your planning to overclock then the XP1700 is the way to go. the NF7 line supports every athlon XP processor currently on the market.

theres no such thing as a 384 or 786MB stick of ram, you'll have to use 3 stick of 256MB or one 512 and one 256 to get to 768MB. i would go with either 2 256MB sticks or 2 512MB stick though, that way you can use the dual channel capabilitys of the NF7.

the difference between the NF7-S and the NF7 is the -S has serial ATA/RAID support and the Soundstorm audio (which is better then a Audigy), the NF7-M is the one with onboard graphics.

corsair & crucial are bother quality ram, i personally use corsair TWINX 512MB PC3200LL with my NF7-S and it runs great. i don't see a reason why the crucial ram wouldn't work but i have no expirence with it on this board.

a 350W PSU should work just fine but you're not going to have much headroom for upgrading and it might limit your possible overclocking. these days i wouldn't get anything lower then a quality 400W, they are not as expensive as they used to be, you can never have a PSU thats 'too powerful' and it's always nice to know you've got plenty of juice for later upgrading (upgrading sucks when you have to upgrade before you can start to upgrade.... if that makes sense)

oh yeah, welcome to the forum feel free to ask whatever questions you might have (as long as they are within the rules of course )

Thanks for all of your help so far, just one or two more questions.

I'm on newegg and i see PC-3200LL and PC-3200LLPT - one with heat spreaders, one with platinum heat spreaders - both are the same price, so what advantage/difference does one have over the other, especially in relation to the NF7/-S?

Also, if i end up going with the NF7, do I have to worry about any revision's such as with v2.0 with the -S?

Thanks again =)

forgot one more, you may not be able to answer this but someone else hopefully could.
I'm looking at crucials site, and they're offering 2 512 3200's for just 10$ more than 1 512 pc3200LL of corsair (at newegg). so, first of all, is low latency better than having double the ram (1gb versus 512mb)? and secondly, does the NF7 line use unbuffered non-parity or un-buffered ECC?

thanks once again

definatly go with the 2 512MB sticks. the low latency doesn't make a big enough differnce to go with half the amount of ram. i don't know the second part of this question though, i wouldn't want to give you a false answer so i'll leave it for someone who knows.

you shouldn't have to worry about the revision number now, all of them should be revision two (you want a revision two, the previos revisions has a bios corruption issue, it's virtually non existant in the rev 2). everyone that's ordered a NF7 from newegg lately have gotten revsion 2, you could also go to excaliburpc.com as they guarentee the revision.

the PC3200LL and PC3200LLPT are identicle, the only difference is the color of the heatspreader.

well thanks for all of your help john =)

can anyone tell me if the nf7-s take's non-parity, or ECC ram? thanks

nevermind, found it on page 48 of the online manual... non-ecc (parity) if you're wondering.

and thanks again john

ECC ram is *usually* only used in servers.